Category Archives: FET #2 (after IVF #6)

An Unlikely Outcome to an Unlikely FET

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in FET #2 (after IVF #6)

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Yesterday was beta day. I didn’t even bother taking the day off of work because I was prepared for the outcome. I basically expected this to fail, again. After all, it was an unlikely FET. The fall seems a little less painful when you set your expectations so low. In fact, in the days leading up to beta day I really wasn’t even anxious. My husband was a nervous wreck, but he had high hopes. I’d just smile kindly at him and think to myself, “you poor, sweet fool.”

So I decided to go first thing in the morning for the blood draw, then do my PIO shot, and only after I got all of that out of the way, then I planned on taking a home pregnancy test (hpt). Women who take hpt’s and get negatives, but still have to go through all the motions until the confirmation beta must be made of steel.  I just can’t imagine going for a blood draw and taking meds if I already knew it was a bust. Still, by doing the hpt after all that, I at least save myself the dreaded all day wait for the nurse to call to deliver the results. Plus, as I learned from my last cycle, this method allows me to get the news on my own terms rather than from an awkward nurse who isn’t quite sure how to break it to me. I’ve had enough of those awkward nurse calls, thank you very much.  

It was a long 3 minutes waiting for that hpt. Seriously, how can 3 minutes take that long?! After waiting in another room for the seconds to crawl by like a dying snail in the sun, I went in to see the test. I couldn’t believe my eyes. For the first time ever, there were 2 lines. And they were nice dark lines. OMG!

My hands were shaking so bad as I picked up the test and tried to use my phone to tell my husband. I sent pictures of the miracle test to the people who are close to us that have been supporting us all along. These are the few people I would tell regardless of the outcome. I prefaced each text with, “don’t get to excited yet, but…”. Because I wanted people to stay calm and rational about this. No one did, of course, but I guess really I’m just trying to keep myself calm.

I waited 4.5 hours for the nurse to call with my beta results. It seemed like a whole day at least. And I finally got good news. My HCG was 365. A solid number. I had a moment of relief.

To my confusion, my clinic recently changed the way they do betas, so they weren’t planning on doing a second beta until a week from now. Honestly, I don’t get that since the doubling time is more important than one number. But I guess it’s because they are doing them later now, rather than earlier (mine was 12 days past a 5 day transfer, which is like 17 days past ovulation), so if you have a good HCG level at this point they are less worried about it, I guess. I’m not less worried though, so I asked the nurse for a sooner beta. She agreed and said I could do another on Friday, which is 4 days later. I’m sure I’ll hate myself for asking for this come Friday morning, but hopefully by the afternoon I’ll have a little more reassurance.

So here I sit, pregnant. I’m still in shock. The beautiful hpt is still sitting on my desk a day later. I don’t know what to do with it, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away. It was very hard won. It’s like gold. Maybe I’ll take it for a walk later or pet it. I never had one of these with my first IVF pregnancy because I was so traumatized by years of negative tests that I was simply too scared to take a hpt, even after my positive beta.

Despite the shock though, somewhere inside of me is a calm. It’s the same underlying calmness that I felt during my pregnancy with my first IVF baby 4 years ago. I had that calm despite 2 rather large bleeds that were reminiscent of crime scenes due to a nasty subchorionic hematoma early on in that pregnancy. It’s a calm that says, “everything is going to be okay,” despite the statistics that might suggest otherwise. If I let my analytical mind begin to stir, I start mulling over miscarriage statistics for my age, and panic starts to pound in my chest. So I’ve decided to simply be irrational and not think at all during these next weeks. Is that possible?

One thing I do know for a fact is that worrying will not change the outcome, it will only make me miserable in the process. So I’m making the conscious decision to trust that calm wave that’s flowing through me right now. Maybe it’s my intuition telling me that everything really will work out. Maybe it’s hope sneaking in. Maybe it’s completely irrational. Whatever it is, I’m going to go with it. Otherwise I’m not sure how I’d survive the next 4 days.

Of course, this may be easier said then done. Must. Stop. Thinking.

FET, Emotions, and Control

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by in FET #2 (after IVF #6)

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Another frozen embryo transfer is complete. We transferred my 2 remaining blastocysts on Wednesday the 9th. One is the surprise embryo left over from my last fresh transfer, and the other was PGS tested and labeled “abnormal”. I know how that sounds, but you can read more about how my RE and I came to the decision to transfer these two here.  The transfer went well. Both embryos were thawed about 5 hours before the transfer and immediately began showing great growth. One was almost completely hatched. The procedure was easy and lots of laughs were shared among the RE, nurse, my husband, and I, as usual because my clinic is awesome. I did pre- and post-acupuncture, then relaxed.

FET blasts

Hatching day-5 blast, early blast day-6

And so there it is, I have two tiny embryos doing their thing in my uterus. And by day 2 after transfer, I completely lost it. Typically, the panic and worry doesn’t set in until much closer to beta day. Normally, I’m in a happy “pregnant until proven otherwise” state, with my hand on my belly sending good energy to my embryos. I envision it working and the good news I’m soon to get. I put all my intention, prayer, and determination into a positive outcome.

But not this time. This time, I feel scared to touch my belly and think of these embryos. I feel scared of being hopeful. Maybe I’ve simply gotten bad news one too many times.

Here’s where it gets tricky though. My mind has started playing games with me. I know a big factor influencing this is the estrogen and progesterone I’m injecting, which makes me not feel quite like myself anymore. Despite rational thought to the contrary, I’m scared that if I don’t set my intentions and focus on these embryos that maybe it will fail because I didn’t want it bad enough – because I didn’t try hard enough. You see, I’m a person who believes in both rational science and the magic of the universe and power of the mind. Sometimes I feel conflicted because these two sides of me don’t seem to mesh, while other times I have no problem seeing how beautifully they dance together.

The truth is I want to protect my heart. I don’t want to get my hopes up. I don’t want to spend this next week connecting to a baby in my womb just to find out that the embryos were dead all along.  It’s a set up for a big fall. But I’m scared that in allowing myself that distance, I’m somehow sabotaging the outcome. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Logically I know that can’t be true. My very first IVF, the one that brought me my daughter, I was absolutely convinced by beta day that it failed. Earlier in the wait I was more positive though. Then, years later when I transferred my PGS normal girl, I was certain it worked. And it didn’t. Last cycle I spent the whole time sending energy to my embryos, connecting with them, and sending my intention out to the Universe to be heard, yet none implanted.

My logical mind tells me that it doesn’t really matter what I do. At this point, whether my embryo implants and grows or not only depends on the strength and make up of that embryo. Inside my uterus, where my lining is perfect, there is silence, safety, and opportunity. I’ve done my part, and now it’s up to the embryos. But my emotional mind, and possibly my spiritual self, struggle to surrender to that.

At the beginning of this cycle I told myself that I wasn’t going to try to control or influence the outcome, which may only be a perception of control anyway.  Of course, I follow protocol instructions, take good physical care of myself, and all that. But I decided not to stress, over think, over analyze. I decided not to pray every night, light candles, or visualize. The Divine knows my desire, I’ve not been shy about it. So I let this one go. I surrendered to the Universe. I’ve been able to maintain that less anxious attitude all the way up until yesterday, when all the fear crept back in. When I started to second guess myself and whether I’ve done or am doing enough to make it work.

As though I can control it.

Maybe that’s the lesson here. To learn to truly let go.

 

 

An Unlikely FET

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in FET #2 (after IVF #6)

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Well this should be an interesting cycle.

Yesterday I began the preparations for another frozen embryo transfer (FET). My baseline ultrasound went well – my lining is thin as it should be at the start and my ovaries are “quiet”. Glad there’s no party going on in there. My blood work came back normal and so I was given the green light for estradiol valerate injections. Somehow I managed to forget that this medication is an intramuscular (IM) injection. Who wouldn’t want to block that out?  Also I’ll be doing progesterone in oil  – the dreaded butt shot – later in the cycle. So with these two, I’m anticipating a sore back end. However, I recently realized that my husband had previously been doing my IM shots way too low, which probably accounts for much of the pain and bruising. Mind you, I used PIO for 10 weeks during my IVF pregnancy so you’d think we would have known better. In any event, I think (or hope) things will go smoother now that we know to aim higher.

What makes this cycle so interesting, though, is that we are using 2 embryos that have the odds highly stacked against them – my PGS “abnormal” embryo and my bonus embryo left over from last cycle. I wrote more about these embryos here. If this works I’ll be shocked.

This cycle feels pretty different from the rest. I feel calmer. I’m not stressing about every little thing, analyzing every option, and second guessing every choice. And you know, all of that mental effort is exhausting and time consuming! I’m taking a cue from my beloved ocean – going with the flow and riding the waves. I’m not fighting the current. There is strength in that. Of course I hope this goes well, but honestly I’m not expecting it. I’m not clinging onto the outcome. I’m just riding the wave and waiting to observe where I end up. This is my visualization, my mantra.

That’s not to say this will be easy, or that another negative outcome won’t hurt. But I know I can weather that pain. I know the storm will calm and there will be sunshine again. So let’s see what happens…

Jennee phone 2018 946

My happy place

 

Next Up: FET (again)

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in FET #2 (after IVF #6), Uncategorized

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My follow-up consultation with my RE yesterday was packed full of good information and even a surprise. So first the surprise: we have one frozen blast left over from my last cycle! Sure I’m ignoring the fact that it’s been a month since my egg retrieval and fresh transfer and no one mentioned to me until yesterday that I have a frostie. Seriously, why did the nurse not call me with that update?! Anyway, I’m going to ignore that slip up and focus on the fact that I have a surprise bonus embryo that I wasn’t counting on. Of course it’s not tested and it’s an early blast graded “BC,” which isn’t the prettiest embryo but still has a 90% chance of surviving the thaw. I asked if BC embryos still make babies and my RE said, “yes”. In fact, just for fun, he looked back to my cycle 4 years ago – the one that resulted in the birth of my daughter – and we discovered that she was also an early blast graded BC. Maybe my crappy looking embryos fair better than my high quality ones. Okay, I’m grasping at straws here. I was 36 back then and I’m 40 now, so the chance that this little BC is healthy is lower. But still – it’s a chance.

My RE recommended using what we have and doing a frozen embryo transfer (FET). Using what we have includes a little frozen PGS “abnormal” girl too. Yes, you heard that right. My RE is recommending that I transfer a PGS abnormal embryo. But first a few points to clarify. We did not do Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) so the results are either normal or abnormal – all mosaics are labeled as abnormal. Knowing what I know now, I would have tested using NGS so that the results would have specified whether the embryo was mosaic and the percentage of mosaicism. But I digress. In any event, I have a lot of respect for my RE (and his knowledge base) because he isn’t quick to dismiss all abnormal embryos. He took a close look at the details of the results and saw that this particular “abnormal” embryo only has a tiny segment of duplication on the short arm of chromosome 17. He said that a small percentage of the population may be walking around with similar minor abnormalities  and no one knows it because we never tested for that sort of thing before. This particular partial duplication will not lead to the birth of a child with an abnormality. Maybe my embryo will even have a superpower. Okay, that’s probably not true but I’d like to think so. The embryo may not implant or might be an early miscarriage (no different than what happens with so many pregnancies both IVF and unassisted) or the embryo could develop into a healthy baby. Both of these embryos are long shots simply due to my age-related quality issues, but it’s a chance. So the plan is to transfer both for my upcoming FET.

Going into this consultation I was prepared for the FET recommendation. I was also prepared to call it quits afterward if the FET fails. Over these last several weeks I’ve come to a place where I’m at peace with not having another child. I never thought I’d say that. And I’ll write specifically about how I shifted to that mindset in a later post. For now though, my RE convinced me to try one more egg retrieval and fresh transfer if this FET ends in another negative beta. My husband and daughter are both strongly rooting for another child, and my husband was also hoping to do one more fresh transfer.

My RE told me about some studies that followed women over the course of up to 12 (gasp) complete IVF egg retrieval and transfer cycles. The studies found that the chance for success increased over the course of 3 cycles, but plateaued after that. Meaning that after 3 complete cycles, the results don’t often change much. It should be noted that multiple FETs with eggs collected during the same retrieval only count once – that is, you can do several FETs and that doesn’t count against the 3 cycle benchmark. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but when weighing the pros and cons of when I want to stop, I’m not going to keep doing this forever in the hopes of breaking the odds. Taking all of my cycles together and the particulars of my results, my RE said that if it were he and his wife, he would do one more IVF and fresh transfer after the FET. He said if we do that and still it fails, then I can feel confident that I didn’t leave anything on the table. No looking back and wondering. No regrets.

I like the sound of that. It makes sense. I think with the “break” of doing a FET first – since there’s so much less prep work for a FET – I can muster up the strength for one more IVF cycle. I don’t want to look back one day and wonder, “what if”. This plan seems like it will satisfactorily exhaust our options with my eggs. And if the journey ends there, I’m okay with that.

On a side note, I want to mention that I mustered up the courage to ask the scary question I had been avoiding. The “does repeated rounds of IVF cause cancer” question. My RE gave me a confident “no” and explained that the hormones used for this are naturally occurring in the body so the body knows how to process them. It doesn’t cause cancer. When I asked specifically about estrogen-sensitive cancers, he explained that again the answer is that IVF will not cause them. Prolonged estrogen can cause estrogen-sensitive cancers to grow (get bigger) but will not cause them. But he specified that it really does have to be prolonged exposure – the short bursts we use for IVF isn’t considered prolonged even when we do it multiple times. So I’m putting that fear to bed and thankfully moving on.